The Farmworker Association of Florida evolved from the Farmworker Association of Central Florida, an organization established in Mascotte in 1983 to organize farmworkers more effectively in their struggle for better housing, wages, and working conditions. The Association was incorporated in 1986, and expanded statewide in 1992. It is today a statewide, grassroots, community-based, farmworker membership organization with over 10,000 Haitian, Hispanic, and African American members and with offices in five locations.
One of the Association’s core founding principles is that the organization be led by farmworkers. Elected by the members representing the five communities where FWAF bases its work, the Board of Directors is composed entirely of current and former farmworkers and is ultimately accountable to the farmworker community. Made up of low-income, Latinx, and other ethnic-minority, migrant and seasonal farmworkers, FWAF’s membership is multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-cultural. Our organizing efforts impact approximately 50,000 individuals in rural agricultural areas of fifteen counties in central and south Florida.